As former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin becomes more and more the voice of lower taxes, state sovereignty, and smaller and less intrusive government, liberals, Democrats, and their friends in the \u201cmainstream\u201d media increasingly call into question her qualifications to serve in our nation\u2019s highest elective office.\u00a0 What is missing from that evaluation is any meaningful comparison of Palin and Obama, side-by-side.\u00a0 So let\u2019s take a closer look at their relative qualifications:<\/p>\n
Barack Hussein Obama II was born with dual US-British citizenship on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu, Hawaii.\u00a0 His parents were Stanley Ann Dunham<\/a>, of Wichita, Kansas, and Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., a Luo<\/a> tribesman from Nyanza Province<\/a>, Kenya.\u00a0 Sarah Louise Palin, nee Heath, a natural born U.S. citizen, was born on February 11, 1964 in Sandpoint, Idaho, the third of four children of Sarah and Charles Heath, a school secretary and a science teacher\/track<\/a> coach, respectively, both American citizens. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Following her 1964 divorce from his father, Obama\u2019s mother married Indonesian Muslim Lolo Soetoro.\u00a0 The Soetoros moved to Indonesia in 1967 where Obama attended public school and the St. Francis of Assisi Roman Catholic School in Jakarta.\u00a0 School records show him enrolled as \u201cBarry Soetoro.\u201d\u00a0 His nationality is listed as \u201cIndonesian\u201d and his religion as \u201cMuslim.\u201d\u00a0 Sarah Palin attended public schools in Alaska, first in Eagle River, and later in Wasilla.<\/p>\n In 1971, Obama was sent to live with his grandparents, Madelyn<\/a> and Stanley Dunham<\/a>, in Honolulu, where he attended the Punahou School<\/a>, a private college preparatory school<\/a>.\u00a0 He graduated from Punahou in 1979 and enrolled at Occidental College in Los Angeles.\u00a0 It is not known whether he attended college under scholarships or grants, or whether he was enrolled as a U.S. citizen or as an Indonesian foreign exchange student.\u00a0 Of his years at Occidental, Obama says he was \u201cstill drinking and doing drugs, just going through the motions.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah Palin attended Wasilla High School<\/a> where she headed the Fellowship of Christian Athletes<\/a> and was a member of the girls\u2019 cross country track team. \u00a0During her senior year, 1982, Palin was co-captain and point guard<\/a> on the Wasilla girls\u2019 basketball team that won the Alaska state championship.\u00a0 And while Obama was entering his senior year at Columbia in the fall of 1982, with person or persons unknown picking up the tab, Palin was embarking on a low-budget, middle class educational experience that took her to no fewer than four colleges and universities.\u00a0<\/p>\n She attended Hawaii Pacific University<\/a> in 1982-83 and transferred to North Idaho College<\/a> in the spring and fall of 1983.\u00a0 In 1984, she won the Miss Wasilla beauty pageant<\/a>, finishing third in the Miss Alaska<\/a> pageant.\u00a0 Along with the title of Miss Congeniality<\/a>, she was awarded a college scholarship.\u00a0 Returning to school, she attended the University of Idaho<\/a> in the fall of 1984 and the spring of 1985, and in the fall of 1985 she enrolled at Matanuska-Susitna College<\/a>.<\/p>\n In 1981, Obama transferred from Occidental to Columbia University.\u00a0 In his book, Dreams from My Father<\/em>, he described his first summer in New York in great detail.\u00a0 However, speaking at a 2008 fundraiser he inadvertently admitted that he\u2019d spent a major portion of the summer of 1981 in Indonesia, India, and Pakistan.\u00a0 At Columbia, Obama majored in political science<\/a> with a specialty in international relations<\/a>.\u00a0 He graduated with a B.A. in political science in June 1983 and spent the next two years working in the private sector in New York.\u00a0 Little is known about that four year period and he refuses to disclose any information about that period of his life.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n After four years in New York, Obama decided to become a \u201ccommunity organizer.\u201d\u00a0 As he tells us in Dreams from My Father<\/em>, \u201cThere wasn\u2019t much detail to the idea; I didn\u2019t know anyone (who made) a living that way.\u201d\u00a0 When classmates asked what a community organizer did, he couldn\u2019t answer directly.\u00a0 \u201cInstead,\u201d he wrote, \u201cI\u2019d pronounce on the need for change.\u00a0 Change in the White House, where Reagan and his minions were carrying on their dirty deeds…\u201d\u00a0 He goes on to explain, \u201cOrganizers didn\u2019t make any money; their poverty was proof of their integrity.\u201d<\/p>\n Obama moved to Chicago where he worked as a community organizer from June 1985 to May 1988 at a salary of $10,000 per year, plus a $2,000 car allowance. \u00a0Then, in mid-1988, just seven years after completing an around-the-world trip to Indonesia, India, and Pakistan, and after working as a Chicago community organizer for three years at less than minimum wage, he traveled to Europe for three weeks and then on to Kenya for a five week family reunion. \u00a0<\/p>\n While Obama was \u201ccommunity organizing\u201d in Chicago, Palin returned to the University of Idaho in the spring of 1986, receiving her B.A. in communications<\/a>, emphasis on journalism<\/a>, in 1987. \u00a0After college, Palin worked as a sportscaster<\/a> for KTUU-TV<\/a> and KTVA-TV<\/a> in Anchorage<\/a>, and as a sports reporter<\/a> for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman<\/a>.\u00a0 <\/em>Following her marriage to Todd Palin in August 1988, she worked in her husband\u2019s commercial fishing business.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n Upon returning from Kenya in late 1988, Obama entered Harvard Law School<\/a>… again, on someone else\u2019s dollar.\u00a0 After just one year he was selected as an editor of the Harvard Law Review, <\/em>and in his second year, without having published a single scholarly essay on any aspect of the law, he was elected president of the Law<\/em> Review<\/em>.\u00a0 Upon receiving his law degree in 1991, he returned to Chicago where he entered the practice of law.\u00a0 Among his clients was the Chicago chapter of ACORN, the Democratic Party\u2019s most corrupt election fraud constituency.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1992, just one year after Obama graduated from Harvard Law School, Sarah Palin was elected to the Wasilla City Council<\/a>, winning by a margin of 63%-37%.\u00a0 She ran for reelection in 1995, winning by a 69%-31% margin.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In 1996, Obama ran for a seat in the Illinois state senate, launching his political career in the home of former Weather Underground terrorist bombers William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.\u00a0 When he attracted several Democrat primary opponents, including then-incumbent Senator Alice Palmer, he had all of his primary opponents stricken from the ballot on technicalities.\u00a0<\/p>\n Meanwhile, motivated by concerns that revenue from a new Wasilla sales tax<\/a> would not be spent wisely, Palin ran for mayor of Wasilla in 1996, defeating incumbent mayor John Stein by 59.6-40.4%.\u00a0 Using income generated by the 2% sales tax approved by voters in 1992, Palin cut property taxes<\/a> by 75% and eliminated personal property and business inventory taxes.<\/p>\n In 2002, after just six years in the Illinois State Senate, during which time he gained a reputation for frequently voting \u201cpresent\u201d on controversial issues that may later prove difficult to explain, Obama began commissioning polls to assess his chances of being elected to the U.S. Senate.<\/p>\n In Alaska, Sarah Palin ran for re-election as mayor of Wasilla, winning with 75.7% of the vote, and was elected president of the Alaska Conference of Mayors. \u00a0After being term-limited in 2002, she became chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission<\/a> in February 2003, overseeing oil and gas operations in the nation\u2019s top energy-producing state.\u00a0 During her tenure on the Commission she concentrated on rooting out corruption, filing ethics charges against fellow commissioners, including members of her own political party.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2006, running on a clean-government platform, Palin sought the Republican nomination for Governor of Alaska. \u00a0She defeated incumbent Frank Murkowski in the Republican primary<\/a>, and in the General Election she defeated former Democratic<\/a> governor Tony Knowles<\/a> by a margin of 48.3-40.9%.\u00a0 At age 42, she became Alaska’s first female governor<\/a>, the youngest governor in state history, the first governor to have been born in the state after Alaska achieved statehood<\/a>.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Palin took office as governor on December 4, 2006, just one month after Obama was elected to the United States Senate.\u00a0 However, while Palin concentrated on serving the people of Alaska, gaining popularity ratings of 93% and 89% in 2007 polls, Obama appeared interested only in \u00a0promoting his own run for the presidency.\u00a0 During her term as governor Palin promoted oil and natural gas resource development in Alaska, including drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge<\/a> (ANWR), and in August 2008 she achieved her top priority as governor, signing a bill authorizing the construction of a $26 billion pipeline to transport natural gas from the North Slope<\/a>, through Canada, to energy-hungry markets in the lower 48 states.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2007, Governor Palin traveled to bases on the Iraq-Kuwait border to meet with members of the Alaska National Guard<\/a>.\u00a0 On her return to the United States she stopped off in Germany for a brief visit with wounded U.S. soldiers.\u00a0 This was in stark contrast to Obama\u2019s much-heralded 2008 campaign swing through France and Germany, during which he declined the opportunity to visit wounded soldiers and Marines at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center… because the rules permitted him to bring his senate<\/em> staff, but not his campaign<\/em> staff.<\/p>\n Comparing the records and accomplishments of the two, there is no doubt that Sarah Palin was, and is, far more qualified than Barack Obama to serve as President of the United States.\u00a0 So why do liberals and Democrats still question her qualifications and her ability to serve as our national leader?\u00a0 Experience aside, what is the single most significant difference between the two… other than skin color? \u00a0It is gender.\u00a0 Liberals and Democrats, those who profess to be the most gender-neutral of all, oppose Palin because she\u2019s a woman… and a damn fine looking one, at that.\u00a0 They can\u2019t defeat her on the issues, so they attack her on her gender.\u00a0 Shame on them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin becomes more and more the voice of lower taxes, state sovereignty, and smaller and less intrusive government, liberals, Democrats, and their friends in the \u201cmainstream\u201d media increasingly call into question her qualifications to serve … Continue reading